


Movie Madness

by JD_meister



Series: General Nefarious Shipping Week 2020 [5]
Category: Ratchet & Clank
Genre: Cyborg OC, F/M, Pre-Villainy Nefarious, Ranger Days, Ranger Nefarious, Reboot-verse, a single frack is given, also: Bad Language Warning, but an AU so, but friendships are just as important as relationships, fun and mishaps at the cinema, technically an AU of an AU, this is more a friendship fic than an actual ship ship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:54:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27703732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JD_meister/pseuds/JD_meister
Summary: Doctor Nefarious and Ranger Witts bond over a morning at the cinema and Qwark's latest attempt at a blockbuster smash.
Relationships: Dr. Nefarious & Original Character(s)
Series: General Nefarious Shipping Week 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1977172
Kudos: 2





	Movie Madness

**Author's Note:**

> Between running out of energy after the first four pieces, not liking my initial idea for this fic halfway through writing and changing it, the US election, tumblr having a meltdown, twice, me thinking this would be a perfect time to start learning Japanese, and also trying to platinum Ghost of Tsushima, it's no wonder this chapter took as long as it did.  
> But finally! I can debut my R&C OC, Ranger Witts! It only took me about two years or so since her initial creation.
> 
> The theme of this fic is AU.
> 
> I feel I should also point out that this is part of a much larger story I've been working on and off for a couple years now, but this part is self-contained enough I feel to stand on its own until I get in gear and write the big one.

Aleero City was abuzz with activity. The sky was thick with cars and starships. The people were enjoying themselves, everyone from the youngest school child to the most wizened seniors were out and about. It was a bright day, the sky strikingly blue with only faint wisps of cloud and the sun shining down strong upon everything. 

Witts lingered in the cool shade away from the light, watching the world go by. She was waiting for her friend and colleague, Dr. Nefarious, to show up. They had been awarded a pair of cinema tickets for Captain Qwark's latest film by the man himself, as an incentive during the Ranger's recent training exercise. We should have taken our time with it, Nefarious had said disparagingly once they were away from the captain, if we knew _this_ is what we were competing for.

Her mechanical eye scanned the sky again for his car. He was no where to be seen. Yet.

She flexed the fingers of her prosthetic as she waited.

Nefarious had been quite right about it needing serviced after their week away on wilderness survival training, and had dismantled, stripped down and rebuilt it with her help only a few days ago. She could have done it herself, but it was a good bonding exercise for a friendship only so recently repaired.

There was a muted booming above. An overhead car was doubling as a mobile rave, loud and muffled bass-boosted techno pumping from within. Trust Nefarious to be heard before he could be seen. The car drew more than a few passing eyes as it made a landing. 

He stepped out a moment later. Witts smiled and waved him over. “Morning Nef.”

He swapped his sunglasses out for his new and improved work glasses as he approached. Sleek and red, the fitted curves complimenting his face nicely. They suited him very well, if she did say so herself. A significant improvement over his old yellow frames.

“Hey Witts, how's it going?”

“Not bad. Not bad at all. You all set for movie madness?”

“As ready as I'll ever be. Can't believe I have to get dressed at the weekend.” Nefarious huffed. “What a joke.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his tracksuit. His open jacket flapped lazily in the breeze.

“I know.” Witts drawled. “Just what is the world coming to?”

She wasn't much better, opting for navy fatigues, a hoody, and gloves. They were better dressed for a morning at the gym instead of a jaunt at the movies, but there was one advantage to their fashion sense, or lack thereof, that day: it was highly unlikely they would have been recognised for the rangers (or ranger and cadet) they were.

“And it''s not even for anything good! Honestly, I could have stayed in bed.”

“I refuse to believe the Nefarious I know would ever pass up the chance to laugh at Qwark.”

“Well, there is that, I suppose.”

There was a queue waiting at the front desks. Plenty of people wanting in to watch everything but Qwark's latest, from what they could overhear. Always a good sign when _that_ was what you had in fact come to see. Nefarious looked at all the different posters of infinitely more interesting films he would rather watch, instead of slogging through Qwark's latest summer 'hit': _The Sun Shines Bright over Devilston_. A thrill if he ever heard one. Eventually, it was their turn to get in. Witts handed over the tickets.

“Yeah, and I'll have a medium salt popcorn too, please.” She said.

“Witts, it's not even ten in the morning yet!”

“So?”

“So get the large!” He turned sharply to the bored till boy. “We'll have a large.”

“Sure man, whatever you like. You want drinks?”

“Large soda.” He could see Witts smirking and making a face at him out of the corner of his eye. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I'll have a water.” She turned about and immediately parroted him, right down to the tone of his voice. “'So get the large, Witts!' Did you skip breakfast again or something?”

“Water? What are you, eight? And FYI I did in fact have breakfast today. I can just do with another.”

“Oh, excuse me Doctor Grown-Up.” 

“You see what I have to put up with?” He said dryly but without bite to the till boy whose head had been swivelling between the two of them and his station. They took their food and drinks and left for the movie.

The auditorium was barely a quarter full. “Oh, this is just dire.” Nefarious said, groaning at the sight of it. Despite that, all the best seats in the middle had already been taken. They settled for sitting in the vacant back row. Nefarious propped his feet up on the seat in front of him and pulled out his phone. “What? May as well get comfortable.” He said, shrugging, when Witts gave a questioning look. 

It was another fifteen minutes or so until the movie would start. Nefarious began reading the reviews off his phone as they waited. A small handful of other people filed into the room every now and again. There were disjointed murmurs of other conversations from under the music being piped in from above.

“What's the prognosis, doctor?” Witts asked around a mouthful of popcorn, trying to peer over his shoulder at his phone.

“Uhhh, good for a mindless action romp and not much else.” He quoted from one reviewer. “Don't expect to be blown away. ...That just describes everything involving Qwark really.”

“You go on many mindless romps together then, do you?”

“You've no idea.” He said, and they laughed. 

Another gaggle of people wandered in and found some seats just as the music cut off and the lights dimmed, the pre-movie trailers began to roll, and, of course, then finally came the obligatory 'please turn off your phone' message and the lights went out entirely.

“Fairly certain they were talking to _you_ there, Nef.” Witts muttered.

“It's on mute, it's fine. We're at the back, no-one's going to see! Who could we possibly bother?”

She grinned. “Famous last words.”

A young man sitting by himself about three rows down from them promptly turned in his seat and gave them a sharp “Shush!”. Nefarious made a face at him as soon as he turned back around. Everyone settled in to watch the movie.

It had not been a _bad_ start to the film. It was almost promising, right until Qwark entered the scene. Witts could not help but find it utterly bizarre to see her commanding officer up on the silver screen. It was hard to take it seriously while he still wore his electric green cowl under the rest of his otherwise period correct costume. She couldn't help but snort or scoff every time he came on-screen. If it wasn't for the fact that he was in the movie, she could possibly have gotten into it.

Nefarious continued to browse his phone, and occasionally looked up to see what was happening. Every now and again he would take a noisy slurp of his soda, and the man three rows down would look sharply at him. Nefarious would stare back and silently dare him to say anything. 

An hour dragged by. For the most part Witts could hold herself together, only the odd laugh or snort escaping her. Maybe her brain could finally accept it and learn to ignore the cowl and complete absurdity of what she was seeing.

Then came the love scene halfway in and Witts almost broke. 

She had to clamp her prosthetic over her mouth to stop herself from laughing out loud, but that only served to muffle every other noise that came out of her. 

On-screen, Qwark took his shirt off. “Oh no, no-one needs to see _that_.” Nefarious mumbled, as things then continued to progress. He thanked the camera for cutting away to the love interest.

Witts was now in borderline hysterics, doubled up in her seat with her other hand clutching the arm rest for dear life and tears streaming from her good eye. Nefarious was equal parts perturbed and distracted with what was happening on-screen, and just about ready to burst out laughing himself at the effort Witts was putting in to not completely break. She was shaking with the effort.

The love scene soon passed, to their great relief, and with that Witts managed to pull together a thin control over her emotions. A thin, tenuous control. Nefarious leaned over to mutter in her ear, right as she tried to take a sip of water. “He takes his shirt off but leaves the cowl on?”

Many things happened at once. Witts managed to both choke and sputter at the same time; the water bottle was crushed in the grip of her mechanical right hand, spraying water everywhere; the mostly empty popcorn barrel dropped and spilled on the floor; Nefarious burst out in loud obnoxious laughter. 

The man three rows down stood abruptly and left.

“Fuckin' hell Nef! You _trying_ to drown me?!” She hissed, scandalised and much louder than intended. Other people were looking over now. She was drenched with water, and had crushed the bottle with enough force to spray him as well.

Nefarious laughed harder and slapped a still coughing and choking Witts on the back. Oh, it was just too much fun riling up the oh so steady and phlegmatic cadet! It was then a bright light shone in their eyes. The man three rows down had returned with an usher trailing after him. “Them, sir.” He said, pointing, and returned to his seat. The usher sidled along the otherwise vacant row, the flash-light still trained on them.

“Excuse me, but I've received a complaint, been told you've been making a disturbance. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you both to leave.”

Nefarious stood and pocketed his phone, dragging Witts to her feet as he did. “Yeah whatever. Boring film anyway.”

They followed the usher back out into the main hall, and from there decided it would be best to go outside lest they get in trouble for creating another scene. Back out in the fresh air and sunlight again, Witts had to physically sit down, the film and his antics all just too much for her. Her hair and face were still damp, as was her hoody, and her pale face was an impressive shade of red.

“I'm crying, oh god!” She was lying on her back now, hands covering her face. “That was not a joke?!”

From where he was squatting, Nefarious took out a cloth and started cleaning the water flecks from his glasses. “I guess Qwark _was_ right; we would have fun!”

Witts groaned and with a great deal of effort managed to wrangle together a sense of composure, her cybernetics kicking in at last, and sat up. “I'll not be able to look at him the same way again.” She said evenly, quite suddenly sober, the colour draining from her face until it was a dullish pink.

“Why do you think I stay in my office all day?” He picked her up off the ground. “Come on, let's get lunch.”

### 

Four out of five rangers had gathered in the Hall of Heroes meeting room. Nefarious and Witts shared one side of the table; Cora took the other. They were still waiting on Brax.

Qwark sat at the head of the table. “Sooo, what did you think of my movie?” He said, turning towards Nefarious and Witts. “Fantastic, wasn't it?” He was leaning right forward in his seat, waiting on tenterhooks for their answer. 

They shared a Look. Oh, it was fantastic alright. Fantastically bad. They laughed about it the entire weekend, but hadn't prepared for Qwark's reaction. They knew they should have discussed how to answer such a delicate question. It had been Qwark's idea, his film. It was inevitable he would ask. The man thrived on praise and attention.

“Ohh... the movie, yes...” Nefarious began, uncertain. He kicked Witts under the table for her help.

Witts focused on a point just behind the captain. “We saw it, yeah. It was very, uh... Oh, what's the word I want, doctor?”

“Interesting? Yes. And different.”

“Oh yes, I've never seen _anything_ like it!”

Qwark puffed up at what he naturally assumed was praise. It was at this point Brax finally wandered into the meeting room, distracting Qwark as Nefarious and Witts shared another Look. 

“Well, now that we're all _finally_ here,” Qwark began, “let's get on with it. There are a few things I want to go over before we all sink our teeth into today...”

He turned to the presentation screen, his back to the squad. Witts caught Cora's eye across the table. She held up her datapad so the others could not see her mouth to her: “It was ridiculous. I'll tell you later.”

Cora nodded at her, satisfied at the promise of a proper story, and both focussed once more on the meeting.

**Author's Note:**

> Side-note: I did in fact platinum Ghost of Tsushima. It is an excellent game and I highly recommend it.


End file.
